Whispers in the Dust
by Alexeij
Summary: Drabbles written for the r/fanfiction Discord Drabble Night and others. Will update whenever I write one. Not necessarily set in the WL universe, but most will be.
1. 01) Flood - Swept Away

**Flood - Swept Away**

They'd set up the auction stage on a cliff jutting onto the Colorado. From Boone's perch hundreds of feet away, the legionaries gathered to bid looked like a tide of red. Hundreds.

Too many.

The officer grabbed Carla's leash. She'd started to show in the weeks it had taken him to track her down. Too long. Through his scope, dozens of hands shot up, grasping gold coins.

Too many.

The winner stepped onto the stage. Carla stumbled back as the bullet pierced her heart. Boone watched his wife fall into the Colorado, and waited for them to come for him.


	2. 02) Raindrops

**Raindrops**

The rain stops falling as the kid stumbles into the clearing, drawn by the beacon pulling at his thoughts.

The smoking man plucks each still raindrop from the air. They swirl and flow around him in lazy circles, then mix with hovering clumps of mountain soil.

The smoking man is building statues, the kid thinks. Children and adults, their clothes made of mud running blue, faces sculpted in rainwater. They should crumble, and yet they don't. He weaves, and they stand.

"They're his family," the forest girl whispers from behind him.

"Are they dead?" he asks.

"No. They never existed."


	3. 03) Fish

**Fish**

"Never had fish before?" Joshua Graham asks.

"No fish left in the Mojave," the prisoner says, watching through the bars. Every inch on his jailor's skin is wrapped in bandages and he always stinks of antiseptic. Only his eyes remain visible and as he throws another fish's guts into a bucket, they burn a smidge less.

"I was a hunter and a preacher before I was a warrior and Caesar's Legate," Graham says. "Every kid in New Canaan learns to skin their fish before they're ten. To live off God's bounty, and respect it.

"Do you want to learn, son?"


	4. 04) Rocking the Boat

**Rocking The Boat**

Ruth takes the revolver to the firing range religiously, but there are two bullets she never fires.

Colonel Autumn presented it to her on the day she made Lieutenant, the first Wastelander to attain the rank within the Enclave in decades.

"If I ever stray from the path, use it."

It's the same revolver that executed the Overseer - her uncle - on the day the Enclave came to Vault 117 and rescued her brother and her.

Every time she slots the two bullets into their cylinders, Ruth prays that she'll never have to follow that order.

She prays, but she's ready.


	5. 05) Love

**5) Mother**

Kana thought she'd grown familiar with fear at Tibbets Prison. She'd learned terror when her home was immolated by earthquakes and warheads. Uncertainty for the future came later, on the exodus out of Death Valley.

But as she let go of Red Lucy's hand, it was the silence that stopped her heart.

Arcade swaddled David in a blanket, but her son wasn't crying. Kana wailed at Arcade to stop as he clamped the umbilical cord - couldn't he see that he wasn't _breathing_?! - then it turned into a whimper as her friend turned David towards her. His chest was rising and falling, fast as any infant's should. His dark complexion was healthy under the drying amniotic fluid. He squirmed in Arcade's hands and she felt her heart give a tentative new beat.

"He's a quiet one," Red Lucy said, and the rest was silenced by Arcade's glare.

She heard it anyway. _"Like his dad."_

Kana sniffled as David's weight and warmth settled in her arms. David's squirming intensified, and she giggled as wrinkled eyelids cracked open, familiar dark eyes urging her to stop being a mess and start acting like a mother.

She guided blindly probing gums to her teat and smiled even as the tears fell.


	6. 06) The Smut Side of the Moon

**The Smut Side of the Moon**

 _Or_

 _The Missing in Action gang takes a stroll around the Fallout Fandom. Pure Crack!_

"Wait a moment there, what did ya just say?"

The barrel of Cass's shotgun was a perfect fit for the back of Coyote-Head's skull - and for some mind-boggling reason, the asshole wasn't even struggling that much - but she couldn't help but stare at the other woman and wonder if the heat hadn't finally baked her brains for good.

"Don't shoot him, please!" The other woman wrung her hands. How she could look like she'd just stepped out of a Vault-Tec pre-war starlet poster at midday in the Mojave, Cass couldn't begin to guess. "He's just a poor, misunderstood soul! All he needs is the right woman to show him the wrong of his ways."

"All this bastard needs is a new hole in his noggin'!" Cass snarled, pressing the barrel harder again his skull. The Legionnaire groaned in pain, but he didn't fight back. What was wrong with people today?! "This is Vulpes Inculta, girlie! Head-honcho of Caesar's rape-and-burn gangs! How many people do ya think he's nailed to a cross?!"

"There's still good inside of him!" the desert starlet cried, honest-to-God tears in her eyes. Cass had to force herself not to roll her eyes and keep them on the 9mm at her hip. "I can feel it!"

"Next you'll tell me that Caesar's a hard man doin' the hard thing for civilization, or that he just took his history fetish a bit to far. Ya know what? Fuck it." There was no doubt this time: it felt good to paint the bastard's brains across the sand.

The crazy head screamed and went for her gun, then John slapped it out of her hand and knocked her unconscious with a love-tap.

"People these days, I swear," Cass grumbled as she cleaned pieces of Inculta from her shotgun with the dead man's skirt.

"Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me." John checked the crazy head's vitals, then hauled her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Either that, or someone's read too much pre-war trashy romances about redemption romances."

"How's it goin' over there?"

John shook his head, expression grim. "Kana and Veronica were still trying to explain that necrophilia isn't that healthy when it comes to sexual practices, and that a winning personality or brooding silences are all well and good, but they don't change that there's a reason why sane ghouls tend to have sex only with other ghouls, and that Rad-X doesn't protect against infections. Arcade was giving a stern talk-to to that John Hancock-wannabee and the tall zombie about being sensible, at least." He sighed. "Neither side looked like they were getting anywhere anytime soon, so I came to check up on you."

Cass fell in step with him, trying to map the closest way to Dr. Usanagi's Clinic. Maybe the good doctor could do something for the poor girl.

"I swear, people on the East Coast have lost their goddamned minds. All that's missing is people sexin' up deathclaws or some other shit. Must be somethin' in the water."


	7. 07) Stargazing

**Stargazing**

All the junk metal shoved in his body make Cassidy heavy, but he manages to keep his face just above the water's edge as he floats down the canyon.

As far as last accomplishment go, he's happy.

The night sky above is the clearest he can remember in his too long a life. Each star, a regret. And the moon's the biggest of them all.

"I found her, Laura. I saw our Rose, our lil' desert flower. Was with her for a wee bit too..."

He talks to his wife until the pull wins and then he goes under, smiling.


End file.
